Chapter 5

August the first after the President's speech surrendering their homes to the blacks they had anchored the house barges out away from the river bank at Chalmette.

They had brought what was left of their families to them for safety.

The owners of the company had been killed that first night.

Olin the spokesman for the Cajuns said they had saved the other three pile rigs and seven barges from " those Niger's " by taking them to the other side of the river and warping them off to trees in a swamp there.

Up river from Chalmette and in what was now a part of the Black Republic was New Orleans. When the President had surrendered to the blacks there were no white citizens left alive there that they knew of.

Like every City and Town in the country the public water supply had been poisoned. It had not been discovered there before almost every white person living after the cease fire had drank from it.

( The blacks had stored water and food for their own use ).

Olin had decided to take his people down river to some place in what remained of the United States where they could find a place to live. The crew at Port Arthur had been in radio contact and had reported they were safe and things were quiet there.

Olin had taken the three tugs and three house barges and some work barges through the inland water way to Port Arthur.

The Cajuns were cooking Gator meat, turtle and fish they had caught. There was polk salad and wild turnip greens.

Tim and Cami were invited for Sunday Brunch.

Tim told Olin that he was about to finish the contract they had been working on.

Olin had asked if there might be jobs for any of his people.

Tim had asked if they wanted to work for him using the equipment here. If they did Tim said he would not plan to send one of his crews and barges to Port Arthur. Olin said Tim had a deal. He would choose a crew and they would be ready when Tim had a contract for the work.

Olin had been the superintendent in charge of all the projects of the firm at Chalmette. He wanted to know if there would be more work for his crews after the work was finished at Port Arthur.

Tim told him he had plenty of work now if the equipment left near New Orleans was here.

Olin suggested that he and some of his men go back and get it.

Tim told him he would fly back to Port Arthur the next day and he and Olin would fly over to Chalmette. They could find out if any thing was left there.

If it looked feasible he might furnish the fuel and pay a group to go for it. If the equipment could be gotten to Texas, there was work for all of the men.

Cami and Tim ate a bite with the Cajuns and began their flight back toward Galveston. Out over the Gulf Tim asked Cami if she would like to fly the plane.

Cami listened and followed instructions. She learned part of the instruments and most of the controls.

Tim asked if she would like to learn to fly and get a pilots licensee.

Cami told him she had always wanted to be able to fly a plane. Tim told her he would pay her way through flight school if she would get her pilots, twin engine and instrument certificates.

He offered to let her fly his plane from after closing time at the office until near dark every day. That would have to wait until she had her solo flight in flying school.

Tim had asked Cami to hire two of the wives of men working for them for the office.

Tim told Cami he wanted her to go to the airport and enlist in the Flying School and spend two hours a day there.

Normally that would be one hour of flying and one hour of study.

She was to come in and get things started then go to school each day.

He would fly with her after work.

Tim let Cami fly the plane until the fuel gauge showed that they should go home.

Tim did two tag landings showing her how to land on water. He had been a flight instructor in the Navy.

Tim left Cami in charge the next morning and flew to Port Arthur. Olin and two others were ready to get aboard the plane.

Tim had loaded four AK47s and several spare clips for each. There was a case of one thousand rounds of cartridges for them buckled in a rear seat.

Tim gave each man a 9mm S&W hand gun.

The flight over Louisiana revealed that severe damage was inflicted during the twelve hours of the rebellion.

The small towns were almost totally demolished. New Orleans was severely damaged burned since it was a part of the black republic much that might be of use was unharmed. Only minor damage was done in any of what was now the Black Republic.

Down river at Chalmette not a black person was to be seen.

Tim landed on the south west side of the river.

The three pilling rigs were still as Olin and his men had left them.

Tim taxied the plane across the river to the docks of the company Olin had worked for.

There was a six hundred foot long barge with two story offices on one end and a hangar on the other. A helicopter landing was between the offices and the hangar.

The tail end, behind the hangar was a retractable sea plane ramp.

Stored inside the hangar were two choppers and a Grumman Sea plane just like the one Tim was flying.

Ashore were the autos and trucks the crew men had been driving when they had brought their families there to safety.

A number of trucks belonging to the company were parked there. Several pieces of machinery were on the docks.

Six work barges were tied up.

In sight down river was a massive fuel facility.

On the side of the river claimed as part of the Black Republic there was little damage except to white owned residences. The blacks had saved any thing that might be of use to their Republic. The other side was nearly totally destroyed.

Tim taxied down river to the fuel site.

Nothing had been damaged. Two large barges were tied up there and they were full of diesel fuel. Another barge was at the dock, it was empty. That barge was marked "Gasoline Only".

The hoses that had been used to pump the gasoline from the barge were still attached. Tim could see a piping arraignment that would allow the gas to flow out of the storage tanks and back into the barge by gravity.

Tim took off and flew over the area around Chalmette. There were no signs of any blacks having remained there. That part of Louisiana was deserted.

Tim and Olin agreed that a party of well armed men would probably be safe if they made a fast visit.

Tim told Olin that he could count on guns and ammunition and one additional tug from Galveston.

Tim promised to send enough fuel for the four tugs to make a round trip from Port Arthur to Chalmette and back to Texas.

Tim called Cami and told her what he had in mind. He asked Cami to call in the largest tug in his fleet and dispatch it and a small barge with enough fuel aboard for a trip to Chalmette and back for four tugs.

He asked her to get volunteers to man the tug. If they were able to complete their tasks each man would get a thousand dollar bonus.

Tim offered the men from Chalmette the same deal.

Cami dispatched the tug and crew in less than three hours. Tim landed at Port Arthur and was going over the final details with Olin and one of his foremen when Cami called to report that the tug was ready to depart.

Tim asked that she see that forty assault rifles and ammo were loaded.

The next morning Olin and his fleet of tugs left at day break.

Eight days later they were on their way back.

They had picked up another tug and had filled an empty fuel barge Olin had found up river from Chalmette.

Every piece of usable equipment they had found along the river was on the barges.

Not a shot had been fired.

When Olin had reported that his fleet was approaching the gulf and nearly out of the river channel Tim had ordered them to come directly to Galveston. The weather report was good for through the next week in the Gulf.

While Olin had been gone Tim and Cami flew to Corpus Christy.

A director of the X Y Z corporation had called Tim and asked if he would be interested in opening an office in Corpus Christy. He promised to see that there would be plenty of work for him there.

He told Tim that if he would contact a person with The Lone Star Bank there he would be able to get the title deed to a marine fuel docks and a large docking facility.

The director told Tim that the tanks of the fuel dock were assumed to have been dumped into the bay at the first of the black rebellion. That was not true ! The party of six blacks that had been assigned that mission had been killed after dumping only two of the ten tanks.

The power was still not on in that part of the bay. The water system was still full of poison. Only part of the phone system worked yet.

Corpus Christy was going to need a lot of re-building.

Tim called the bank in Corpus Christy and asked for the person the director had named. It was a lady.

She told Tim she was expecting his call.

She said that the property was already his.

The bank had sold the property to his representative two days before. He merely needed to come by and get the deed and the keys to the warehouses and fuel dock offices.

When Cami flew them over the city it was a shambles. Only a few streets were open for traffic.

Tim called the bank lady. She gave directions to locate the property and volunteered to meet them there.

Cami landed and taxied to a float at the fuel dock.

The place was huge !

Large warehouses were behind a pier next to the fueling area. Big fork lifts were parked in a row along side the first warehouse. Several cranes were at the dockside. Two small ships were tied to the dock in front of the line of warehouses. One of the ships had Tampa Florida on the stern as it's home port. The other had Savanna Georgia on it's stern.

A member of the crew from one of the ships came to meet Tim and Cami.

He said that both ships had docked several days after August the first. They both had cargo intended for unloading here.

Both ships would have to take on fuel before leaving port. They had not been able to communicate with their owners and had no place to go.

Food was running out and water was very low. One of the ships had used all of its fuel keeping it's generator running.

They had found a school bus and both crews were planing to leave that day to find a place where they could survive.

Tim advised him to try to make it to Galveston if they could. There was water and food there and jobs to be had rebuilding the city.

The lady from the bank drove up. She got out of her car and introduced herself. After she was satisfied that Tim was the proper person, she turned a metal box of tagged keys and a legal document transferring the title to the terminal and fuel depot to East Texas Marine Construction Company over to him.

Tim asked who the representative was that had acted on his behalf in the purchase.

The lady banker replied that her boss had told her that the X Y Z Corporation had been his agent.

The lady from the bank excused herself to return to her duties.

Tim and Cami spent over an hour looking over the facility. Those six warehouses were nearly filled with goods waiting to be picked up by the owners. ( Most of them were dead ) There was no way of knowing what was stored there until the power was resumed or a generator was able to bring the terminal computers to life.

It was time for them to leave.

Cami had earned her FAA pilots licensee and Tim was letting her get as many hours as possible logged into her flight book.

Cami got them airborne.

Tim asked Cami to follow the Inland Water Way back to Galveston.

There were to many draw bridges that would not operate without power for Tim to think of using the waterway yet.

Things were better at Galveston than most other places in the States.

Tim gave instructions to have one house barge left at Port Arthur and the other three towed to Galveston.

Tim and Cami talked of sending the office barge coming from Chalmette to Corpus Cristy. Tim asked Cami what she thought of placing Olin in charge of a branch office there.

Cami thought it made sense, with a sea plane, Tim could spend as much time there as was needed. Olin seemed to be qualified for the job THAT WEEK NEAR WHITE SANDS N.M.

At a small military storage site a group of armed men secured the guards and robbed the place of all small arms and took the cash for the payroll from the safe.

The Guards had been imprisoned in a large fire proof storage vault. They could see nor hear nothing of what was going on outside. They were locked up for seven hours. The next shift of guards reported for duty and released them.

The survey team after the robbery reported that fifty semi-automatic rifles and twenty three pistols were taken.

The post safe was robbed of eighty one thousand dollars.

The team reported to Washington that there was five hundred and twelve cylinders in the bomb proof bunker there. The cylinders were painted international orange with a skull and crossed bones. The serial numbers on the cylinders were from 01 to 0512.